Jul 11
30
Isabelle – the filming begins
Anyone who has been paying even the slightest attention to what we are doing at the moment can’t have failed to know that the last few weeks and months have been all about preparing to shoot Isabelle, our summer rom-com. Well yesterday we finally started, and it was a fantastic – if long – day.
The first time you work with new actors, new crew, and new locations there is always a certain amount of trepidation. Will everything go as planned? Will everyone get on? Will everyone deliver performances at least as good as they did in the rehearsal? You can plan and prepare as much as you like, but on the day a film is not about how many pages of notes you have made, but how people who have often never met before can work together and create the film that the director envisaged. But from the moment we met up yesterday morning I knew that there was nothing to worry about, and as the day went on things just got better and better. Everyone on set delivered more than I could possibly have hoped, and so I can say with no doubt whatsoever that this is going to be a great film.
If you’ve never been involved in a project like this you probably have no idea the level of intensity there can be on a film set. Actors are pushed into emotional situations, often completely out of context as the scenes are rarely filmed in anything approaching the right order. Crew are faced with near impossible timelines as the director tries to get ‘just one more scene’ done in a day. And so, particularly on a small production like this one, the ability of everyone to get along and work together without getting on each other’s nerves is almost as important as their technical ability. I have been on film sets where this was not the case, and I can tell you it is not a good experience.
But the cast and crew we have for Isabelle are amazing. A relaxed and happy set is an efficient and creative set, and this lot are all of the above. We have worked together for just one whole day and one bit of a rehearsal, and yet we are already starting to feel like old friends. Yesterday we were shooting across two physically separated locations, the first of which was in the middle of nowhere. We were there a lot longer than I had expected and so by the time we got back for lunch it was already well into the afternoon. We had a number of scenes planned that we were unable to shoot because of various administrative reasons, and so the schedule became somewhat fluid as things were changed around to fit. And yet there was no stress at all. It was one of the most relaxed sets I have ever seen. And that was down to the general awsomeness of everyone involved.
So here’s a big THANK YOU to everyone on the crew and in the cast, and here’s to more days like that one as we continue to film over the summer. I make films because I enjoy doing it, and yesterday reminded me why I enjoy it so much.
Graham
